Where a bus driver and a trolley conductor close the doors in your face and then a trolley jolts to a stop every two minutes and it takes you a total of two hours for a commute that normally takes 30 minutes? Punkyblond did.
I was reading the responses to this, and I am ashamed that I honestly don't know what 'snark' means. I've seen the term used here in U-Hub and other blogs...anyone care to enlighten me?
The Snark is the fictional monster
The Snark is the fictional monster that Lewis Carroll created in his nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. His descriptions of the creature were, in his own words, unimaginable, and he wanted that to remain so.
The origin of the word
Martin Gardner mentions several combinations of words that have been suggested to be at the origin of the name: snail and shark, snake and shark, snarl and bark etc. No support for any of this can be found in Lewis Carroll's writings.
What Lewis Carroll asked the children
Lewis Carroll was asked repeatedly to explain the Snark. Gardner gives us five examples that are on record. In all of them, Carroll's answer is that he doesn't know himself, that he can't explain, etc. His most interesting answer: ...Some children are puzzled with it. Of course you know what a Snark is? If you do, please tell me... link
From the wiktionary
snark (countable and uncountable; plural snarks)
1. (uncountable) Snide remarks.
2. (mathematics) A graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.
Snark is the insipid, cliched standard commenting method on livejournal. They think it's cute, cool, clever, you name it. Livejournal isn't so much about community, as a constant contest to be "clever", and half the time, a "clever bully".
Snark is the kind of thing that, said to a stranger in the wrong part of town, would get you punched in the face or shot. I dare say a lot of Livejournal users would benefit from having to meet the people they insult, face-to-face.
Then again, we'd generate long, long diatribes about ER visits for weeks to come...
Comments
Random question
I was reading the responses to this, and I am ashamed that I honestly don't know what 'snark' means. I've seen the term used here in U-Hub and other blogs...anyone care to enlighten me?
Snark means
Think: wittily sarcastic, but on the internet. It's meant to be funny, often at the expense of the subject.
Portmanteau
from "snide remark".
I never knew that!
I've been reading and using the word for years without realizing its origin. Thanks!
I have my doubts as to this derivation of snark
Lewis Carroll coined this term for his epic poem. The "snide remark" definition almost surely amounts to long-after-the-fact faux etymology.
Kewl!
So a "snark tag" can mean either this:
[snark][/snark]
or evidence of a rabies-vaccinated or radio-collared snark?
Fictional character/Snide Remark
Fictional character/Snide Remark
From the wiktionary
standard livejournal commenting method
Snark is the insipid, cliched standard commenting method on livejournal. They think it's cute, cool, clever, you name it. Livejournal isn't so much about community, as a constant contest to be "clever", and half the time, a "clever bully".
Snark is the kind of thing that, said to a stranger in the wrong part of town, would get you punched in the face or shot. I dare say a lot of Livejournal users would benefit from having to meet the people they insult, face-to-face.
Then again, we'd generate long, long diatribes about ER visits for weeks to come...